Christine Ellen "Chrissie" Hynde (born September 7, 1951) is an American musician who is best known as a founding member of the rock band The Pretenders.

Inspired by hippie counter-culture, Hynde worked in London with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood at their punk-themed clothing store, SEX. In 1978, she formed her own band, The Pretenders, with the late Pete Farndon, the late James Honeyman-Scott and Martin Chambers. As singer, songwriter and guitarist, she has been the only constant member of the band throughout its history. She has also released a number of hits with other musicians including Frank Sinatra and UB40. Hynde and The Pretenders were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005.

Hynde was born in Akron, Ohio, the daughter of a part-time secretary and a Yellow Pages manager. She graduated from Firestone High School in Akron, but stated that "I was never too interested in high school. I mean, I never went to a dance, I never went out on a date, I never went steady. It became pretty awful for me. Except, of course, I could go see bands, and that was the kick. I used to go to Cleveland just to see any band. So I was in love a lot of the time, but mostly with guys in bands that I had never met. For me, knowing that Brian Jones was out there, and later that Iggy Pop was out there, made it kind of hard for me to get too interested in the guys that were around me. I had, uh, bigger things in mind, like girls."[2]

Hynde also developed an interest in the UK music magazine NME and moved to London in 1973. With her art background, Hynde landed a job in an architectural firm but left after eight months. It was then that she met rock journalist Nick Kent and landed a position at NME,[6] writing what she subsequently described as "half-baked philosophical drivel and nonsensical tirades."[7] However, this proved not to last and Hynde later found herself working at Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood's then-little-known clothing store, SEX.[8] At one point she tried to convince Johnny Rotten and then Sid Vicious (of The Sex Pistols, who were managed by McLaren) to marry her, just in order for her to get a work permit.[9] Hynde's version of this episode has it that Rotten "offered to go to a registry office with me and do the unmentionable" but when he subsequently pulled out, Vicious volunteered to take his place.[10] Upon arrival at the registry office the following morning, they found it "closed for an extended holiday" and were unable to attend the following day due to Vicious making a court appearance.[10] Hynde then attempted to start a band in France before her return to Cleveland in 1975.[11]

Hynde went back to France in 1976 to try to form a band, but it did not work out. She left Kent for Michael Fradji Memmi, bass player of The Frenchies, which she joined.[4] For one show at the Olympia Theatre when their singer had left, she took the lead singer duties.[citation needed] She found her way back to London in the midst of the early punk movement. In late 1976, Hynde responded to an advertisement in Melody Maker for band members and attended an audition for the band that would become 999. Jon Moss (who would later be in Culture Club) and Tony James of Generation X also auditioned.[12] Later, Hynde tried to start a group with Mick Jones from The Clash.[4]

After the band failed to take flight, Malcolm McLaren placed her as a guitarist in Masters of the Backside, but she was asked to leave the group just as it became The Damned. After a brief spell in the band Johnny Moped, Mick Jones invited Hynde to join his band on their initial tour of Britain.[4] Hynde recollected of that period: "It was great, but my heart was breaking. I wanted to be in a band so bad. And to go to all the gigs, to see it so close up, to be living in it and not to have a band was devastating to me. When I left, I said, 'Thanks a lot for lettin' me come along,' and I went back and went weeping on the underground throughout London. All the people I knew in town, they were all in bands. And there I was, like the real loser, you know? Really the loser."[2][13]

Hynde also spent a short time with The Moors Murderers in 1978. Named after a pair of child-killers, the band consisted of future Visage front man Steve Strange on vocals, Vince Ely on drums, and Mark Ryan (a.k.a. The Kid) and Hynde on guitar. The band's name alone was enough to start controversy and she soon distanced herself from the group, as noted in NME. Hynde said, "I'm not in the group, I only rehearsed with them". She stated that "Steve Strange and Soo Catwoman had the idea for the group, and asked me to help them out on guitar, which I did, even though I was getting my own group together and still am."[14]

They recorded a demo tape (including "Precious", "The Wait" and a Kinks cover, "Stop Your Sobbing"), handed it to Hynde's friend Nick Lowe, produced a single ("Stop Your Sobbing"/"The Wait") and performed their first gigs in a club in Paris. The single was released in January 1979 and hit the Top 30 in UK. Later that spring (1979), the Pretenders recorded their eponymous first album and hit the charts in UK and US with the song "Brass in Pocket".[17]

The band released an EP album, titled Extended Play, then Pretenders II later in the summer. "Talk of the Town" and "Message of Love" were on both. The Pretenders lineup would change repeatedly over the next decade. Honeyman-Scott died of heart failure in June 1982, just days after Farndon had been fired from the band. Martin Chambers left the band in the mid-1980s. Amidst the ever changing lineup, Hynde endured as the sole original Pretender until Chambers' return in the mid-1990s. Hynde was the only stable member of the band during this period.[18]

In October 2016, Hynde collaborated with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys on the album Alone. This was released as a Pretenders album, though Hynde was the only original member to appear on it.[19] The new band also played a concert for the BBC at the Maida Vale studio.[20]

Hynde recorded a duet with Frank Sinatra on Sinatra's 1994 album Duets II. They performed the song "Luck Be a Lady". In 1995, Hynde made an acting appearance (and performed "Angel of the Morning" on acoustic guitar) on the US television comedy Friends on the episode "The One with the Baby on the Bus".[26] Also, in 1995, Hynde sang a cover of "Love Can Build a Bridge" with Cher and Neneh Cherry.[27]Eric Clapton appeared on the track, supplying the lead guitar solo that is featured in the song's instrumental bridge. In 1997, the EMI publishing company issued a cease and desist request to Rush Limbaugh, who for years had been using an edited instrumental version of Hynde's song "My City Was Gone" for the broadcast's opening theme. When the request came to Hynde's attention during a radio interview, she said her parents loved and listened to Rush and she did not mind its use. They agreed to a usage payment which she donates to PETA.[28][29]

Chrissie Hynde and her band, the Pretenders, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2005 – the Museum's 20th anniversary year, as well as year of the 50th anniversary of the birth of Rock and Roll. Irish band U2 was also among the inductees that year.[40] The ceremony was held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.[41]

On October 17, 2008, she was an opening act for fellow Akron-area musicians Devo at a special benefit concert at the Akron Civic Theater for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. The Black Keys, another Akron-based band, and the then up-and-coming solo artist, Rachel Roberts, performed prior to her.[42]

Chrissie Hynde and Welsh singer J.P. Jones have formed a band called "J.P., Chrissie and the Fairground Boys". They released their debut album, Fidelity, on August 24, 2010.[45] Several stops on the tour were recorded and sold on USB flash drives.[46]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it.(January 2015)

Hynde has a contralto vocal range.[51] Until 1978, shortly before the advent of The Pretenders, Hynde had little idea what she sounded like.[52] Attributing her distinctive time signatures to an inability to count, she eschews formal voice training saying that, "distinctive voices in rock are trained through years of many things: frustration, fear, loneliness, anger, insecurity, arrogance, narcissism, or just sheer perseverance – anything but a teacher."[52]

"I saw her play in Central Park[when the Pretenders played in August 1980]," Madonna recalled. "She was amazing: the only woman I'd seen in performance where I thought, Yeah, she's got balls, she's awesome! . . . It gave me courage, inspiration, to see a woman with that kind of confidence in a man's world."[53]

Hynde lives in London, England, and also has an apartment in the Northside Lofts in her hometown of Akron.[58]

She was listed as one of the 50 best-dressed over 50s by The Guardian in March 2013.[59]

Hynde's daughter Natalie was arrested in 2013 following a protest against the felling of trees in Combe Haven in East Sussex to make way for a road.[60]

Hynde has described becoming a vegetarian as "the best thing that ever happened to me."[61] She says that she came to regard meat-eaters with "distaste, almost contempt" but has learned to "live and associate with [them] but never respected them."[61] Hynde is also an animal rights activist and a supporter of PETA[62] and the animal rights group Viva!.[63] She also appeared in anti-fur trade organization Respect for Animals' commercial 'Fur and Against' in 2002, alongside Jude Law, Paul McCartney and others.

Hynde opened The VegiTerranean, a vegan restaurant in Akron, Ohio,[65] in November 2007. The restaurant served fusion Italian–Mediterranean food[66] by head chef James Scot Jones. Prior to the restaurant's opening, on September 15, 2007, Hynde performed three songs at the restaurant with an acoustic guitarist, Adam Seymour, a former lead guitarist of the Pretenders. The restaurant was voted among the top five vegan restaurants in the U.S. It closed on October 2, 2011, owing to the economic climate, according to Hynde.[67]